US Patent 9166866 Hydration and dehydration with placeholders

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to file system placeholders. In aspects, placeholders may be used by a client to represent remote file system objects. The placeholders may include metadata and may also include none, some, or all of the content of the represented remote file system objects. In conjunction with placeholders and based on one or more factors, a client may hydrate or dehydrate file system objects of the client to follow user directives, inferred user intent, and storage policies of the client.